Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger credits his success with a tough start to management at little Nancy in France.

"It is always difficult measure how lucky I have been," he said. "To start as a youth team coach in a low first division club [in France] and finish here? Certainly with bad luck it doesn't happen but it's difficult to compare the situations.

"Don't think anybody came to me and said 'here is the red carpet for you into a special job' and gave me a big club straight away. I know the biggest luck I have had is that I didn't start at Arsenal, I had to fight."

Wenger suffered relegation with Nancy and added: "Yes, I experienced [relegation] when I was quite young.

"It was a good learning process as I was on my own completely without any assistants.

"The pressure at the bottom is different to pressure at the top. At Nancy we made miracles every year because we where always favourites to go down. When I left they offered me the chance to take over at the club completely. They offered me a contract of five years. But at the time I was only 36 and I decided then to go to Monaco. It is a miracle I had big clubs to go to. But that still happens now, big clubs always look for good young managers."